"Because the best songs in life are usually free, if you look hard enough"

Israel Houghton

Free music this week from a new Christian music website called Grouptune. The site’s main focus is offering big discounts on Christian music, provided they can get enough people to agree to participate in the deals, just like Groupon. (You can check out their FAQ page for more information.) To introduce the site, though, they’ve got 10 song sampler available for free for the next week. Here’s the tracklist:

Natalie Grant – “Held”

Israel Houghton – “Love God Love People”

Aaron Shust – “My Savior My God”

Chris Sligh – “Empty Me”

Lecrae – “Just Like You (feat. J. Paul)”

Selah – “The Lord’s Prayer (Deliver Us)”

Plumb – “Hang On”

Sixteen Cities – “Sing Along”

Tedashii – “Riot”

Me In Motion – “The God I Know”

The sampler is free, but you do need to provide some information to get the deal. As you can see, it’s mostly CCM stuff at the moment, but I’m hoping that once Grouptune launches fully they’ll have deals from rock, hardcore, and hip-hop as well. Time will tell. Anyway, I think the site looks like it’s got a lot of potential, and well worth watching.

Update: I just found out that Tedashii’s “Riot” also one of iTunes Discovery Downloads this week, so if you were just interested in that song, and you’ve already got an iTunes account, you can pick it here without signing up for anything new. Thanks to TFCMB Lorenzo for tipping me off to this!

New Release Tuesday has two free songs this week, worship band Deluge’s “Unshakable” and urban/hip-hop group 21:03′s brand new song “Favor”. Neither are quite my style, but you’re more then welcome to check them out.

Next up, GMC. Thankfully, they archive their weekly downloads, so the free songs from the last three weeks are all still available. The tracks are Israel Houghton’s “Every Prayer”, Karen Peck & New River’s “Why Can’t All God’s Children Get Along”, and Kari Jobe’s rendition of “Revelation Song”. I’m not going to spoil the results, but it’s worth mentioning that all three songs were nominated for Dove Awards this year. Check it out!

There’s actually one more download worth mentioning this week – iTunes is featuring the latest single from a new country group, The Band Perry, for free. Personally, I don’t know much about them, but according to insideREVOLUTION, the group’s lead singer, Kimberly Perry, used to be signed to EMICMG and opened for Jump5 & ZOEgirl.

I don’t know any details beyond that, but I’m impressed with their song (which is called “If I Die Young”). If you enjoy country music you might just want to check this three-sibling group out. I’m glad I did.

Gospel Music Channel has had a pretty big week – on Tuesday, they officially changed their name from “Gospel Music Channel” to just “GMC”. Thankfully, the name changed hasn’t affect their weekly free download, with this week’s free song being Israel Houghton’s “The Power of One (Change the World)”. It’s a slow, soulful track, not really my style, but hey, it’s free, so I’m not complaining.

Also available this week are Stephanie Smith’s “Heart Attack” from iTickets and Laura Story’s “What A Savior” (straight off the new Catalyst Music Project album) from New Release Tuesday. “Heart Attack” is from Stephanie’s new self-titled EP, and (in my opinion), definitely something to check out. Not Afraid, Stephanie’s debut, was definitely on the pop side of pop/rock, but from what I’ve heard of the new EP, it’s very much on the rock side of the spectrum, almost along the lines of Paramore. I like it.

And available from FreeCCM this week is Phillips, Craig, & Dean’s “Counting On God”, track #1 from the trio’s latest Fearless. Honestly, it didn’t sound much like the Phillips, Craig, & Dean that I’ve known, but it’s still quite the decent song, and I’m glad I got it. Check it out:

Rounding out the week is the new band Me In Motion, whose debut video for their song “Losers” is being featured this week as a free download on VideoRocket. I saw the video for the first time on GMC yesterday, and caught myself singing the song hours later – it’s worth getting if you ask me.

Right now until September 3rd, you can enter to win a 32GB iPod Touch from Integrity music via NewReleaseTuesday.com. You have to enter your name, address, and email, to enter. After entering your information, NewReleaseTuesday will give you five free modern worship downloads from Hillsong, Hillsong United, Kari Jobe, Lincoln Brewster, and Israel Houghton. Not only do they give you music downloads, but also the music videos and chord charts to those respective songs! So if you ever lead worship in your church, or youth group, or ever plan to, this would be a great opportunity to pick those up. According to their site, the value of these downloads equal up to $20! Even if you don’t end up as the winner of the iPod Touch, you’ll still be winning something with these free downloads.

Like I said before, this contest is from Integrity Music. When I heard that, I checked out their website, and found that they have some more Woship music downloads. They have a couple songs from Lincoln Brewster, Israel Houghton, Kari Jobe, Jared Anderson, Gateway Worship and Don Moen. All you need to do is go to their site, and click on the ‘Songs’ tab, and there you’ll find a couple of free music downloads and their respective chord charts. To get several of the others, you need to sign up on Integrity’s website and go to the artist’s page.

FreeCCM.com has added a new Connersvine song, “Lay Down”. I’ve lost track of how many different free songs I’ve gotten from Connersvine, but I must be close to having their full CD by now. Okay, maybe not, but this song is getting me one step closer.

Speaking of Connersvine, I was on their website last night and it turns out they’ve got a pretty interesting blog going. If you ever wanted to know what they think of American Idol (and quite a few other things), well, now you can find out. Check it out!

iTicket’s has got two new songs for this next week, from Israel Houghton and Disciple. Disciple’s “Lay My Burdens” is a great power-ballad with an equally great message, while Israel Houghton’s “The Power of One (Change the World)” is a urban/hip-hop/gospel/something-else-altogether-that-I-can’t-put-my-finger-on song. It’s not really my thing, but hey, that’s just me. It’s still a good track, and besides that, it’s free. Enjoy!

Last but definitely not least, I’m happy to announce (*drum roll please*)… Ansley! She wrote the post last week about The Civil Wars to cover for me while I was many miles away from home in the Windy City. She (and possibly some other people) have volunteered to help me out by doing some writing for TFCMB. These next couple of weeks look like they’ll be extremely busy for me, so I’m extremely grateful for the help. Please, go and welcome Ansley on her post.